League of Legends is Changing the Hextech Chest System

As is usual with Riot Games, the team is going full throttle when it comes to changes and overhauls in their newest League of Legends season, and this is equally true (if not more so) for Season 14! As if removing Mythics, changing a lot of items, rehauling Fire Drake, and even adding a new boss to Summoner's Rift wasn't enough, the Motivations team is also working on a lot of changes! 

The Motivations team is the crew behind all sorts of changes that involve adding new ways to keep players motivated to keep playing (thus the name!). They are the ones behind the Champion Mastery system that was released in 2015 with patch V5.6 in NA and V5.8 globally (which is also getting a change!), so it comes as no surprise that they are also the ones responsible for what everyone covets the most: free skins!

Released in the same /DEV that announced the change to the upcoming Champion Mastery system is the new Hextech Crafting overhaul. As stated by the author of the blog, Riot Revenancer, the old earning an S grade to earn chests was difficult to predict (and hard for many who don't main snowball roles). A recent update to the blog announces that the change to the Hextech Chest system will now have a total of 25 chests you can get per split, increasing the average number of chests you can earn per year.

The new way to earn chests isn't that much different but might change the way that everyone earns their chests (and a possibly awful ARAM modification). Paired with the way you'll now earn masteries, you will be rewarded with short-term goals (called Seasonal Milestones) to motivate you to continue going strong per split. The first and third Seasonal Milestones are the most important where the first requires you to get one B Grade and four D- or higher (it's worth noting that D- is the absolute lowest you can go, so just about five games) per champion.

The first tier is available for you to unlock a Hextech Chest up to six per split, but it also only requires five games without the need to excel or overperform, giving the often struggling support role an easier time to earn these chests. Though it is limited to six per split, it is an easier way to earn the chests and unlock at least a few without the weekly time limit (which capped at four, so you could only get four in a quick burst and then one per week thenceforth).

The third tier is the most important for the Hextech Chests — after going through the second tier (requiring 1 A Grade and four D- or higher), you will unlock the third, and to pass it, you need to earn one S grade and four D- or higher. Once you do, you'll get that specific champion's Hextech Chest, which is capped at 25 available per split. Though it still has an S requirement, it does offer a higher amount of chests per year than in previous seasons ever since the introduction of Hextech Chests in 2016.

This change affects the total chests you can get from 52 a year (one per week) to 31 per split, or about 93 chests per year if you farm them out and gain everything. This essentially doubles the number of chests you can earn, which is a welcome change, but it also increases the number of games you'll need to grind out to get it. You need to play a game 15 times per champion, reaching at least one B grade in your first five, an A grade in your second five, and then an S grade in your final five. Whether previously earned S grades will translate in the first 10 games hasn't been announced, which means that we assume it won't.

This is a possibly bad change for ARAM players who seek to get chests, as though the number of chests you can get per split has increased, the requirement to play 15 games per champion can be difficult when the pool of characters is randomised. Paired with the ever-essential need to get an S grade, the random nature of ARAM might make it a bit difficult for those who only play in that game mode to get chests.

That isn't the only change coming to Hextech Crafting, though — a new set of achievements called the Mastery Set is coming to League of Legends. On top of individual milestones per champion, you also have a reward track tailored to you and your playstyle called the "Mastery Set" each split. It's an amalgam of the champions you play, the champions Riot things you'll like, and a curated list of characters.

As you complete individual milestones with these, you will earn progress in the track, which has a slew of other rewards. When you've completed enough with your Mastery Set, you can get what Riot Revenancer called a "super-charged mastery chest". What this means is yet to be clarified, but we look forward to seeing the contents of this as the system gets closer to release!